In June, organizers put even more emphasis on bringing in new members.

The recruitment continues on June 21 and June 28. From 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. those two Tuesdays, all women 16 years or older who love to sing are invited to visit St. Matthews Academy, 214 Kinne St., East Syracuse, to watch and participate in the rehearsal process.

Bass singer and organization publicist Anne Lilly-Hrynyk reports: "All women who meet the age criteria are welcome. But we are particularly encouraging women of all ethnic backgrounds to attend. We would like to grow the number of (African American) and Latino women we have in the chorus, to make our chorus more representative of the city of Syracuse and Onondaga County."

Last year, Lilly-Hrynyk says, 11 women joined, and they got to participate in their first NE Region 16 Sweet Adelines International competition on May 1, at the Mulroy Civic Center in Syracuse. Director Kay Crawford led the show chorus to a seventh-place standing out of 29 choruses competing. And, one of the Spirit of Syracuse's barbershop quartets, Blue Skies, won the regional's most imprioved quartet award.

"Women who attend, whether high schoolers, college students, working women or retired women, will find that we have women from all these groups represented in the chorus," Lilly-Hrynyk says. "The commonality is that probably none of us sang that well when we started. But through top coaching from director Kay Crawford and a host of experts she's brought in to help us, we've grown in our stature and position within the NE Region 16."